Since low levels in my campaign, I’ve been hinting at rifts between the prime material plane and elemental planes. At the low levels I sort of hinted that the problem might have been a little over their heads, but now that they’re level 15 they are starting to turn their attention back to it.
I’ve made it clear that these are larger rifts, not simply portals. It’s also been established that there is another powerful group of adventurers that has had a hand in sabotaging and making this happen.
In my world there is a mystical race of bears, with sub-species pertaining to each season that live in small crossover pockets between the prime material and elemental planes. Their presence is stabilizing and prevents those pockets from opening rifts. I’m thinking their removal is how the sabotaging happened, and their return will be necessary to achieve stability again.
However, while these bears are needed for stability, I’m thinking there needs to be an extra step to actually close these rifts. For some context, my campaign takes place in the first age, before the institution of the divine gate, while powerful personas such as Mordenkeinen and Vecna are still young.
So, what I need is some solid mechanics for how my players will track down these major rifts, and how to close them when they do find them. They are most closely invested in the rift to frostfell on the antarctic continent. I have some ideas, but they’re all weak sauce and I could use some inspiration.
CalebRJ, did you ever find any good material for this idea? I'm exploring doing the same in my campaign currently. I was finishing stocking an area where I'd included Fundamentals (from basic D&D, these are the most simplest of creatures from the elemental planes). I had to important questions I needed to answer for my final design, why was there water where it was and how did these fundamentals get here? I'm thinking some sort of rift.
Need some solid mechanics for planar rifts
Since low levels in my campaign, I’ve been hinting at rifts between the prime material plane and elemental planes. At the low levels I sort of hinted that the problem might have been a little over their heads, but now that they’re level 15 they are starting to turn their attention back to it.
I’ve made it clear that these are larger rifts, not simply portals. It’s also been established that there is another powerful group of adventurers that has had a hand in sabotaging and making this happen.
In my world there is a mystical race of bears, with sub-species pertaining to each season that live in small crossover pockets between the prime material and elemental planes. Their presence is stabilizing and prevents those pockets from opening rifts. I’m thinking their removal is how the sabotaging happened, and their return will be necessary to achieve stability again.
However, while these bears are needed for stability, I’m thinking there needs to be an extra step to actually close these rifts. For some context, my campaign takes place in the first age, before the institution of the divine gate, while powerful personas such as Mordenkeinen and Vecna are still young.
So, what I need is some solid mechanics for how my players will track down these major rifts, and how to close them when they do find them. They are most closely invested in the rift to frostfell on the antarctic continent. I have some ideas, but they’re all weak sauce and I could use some inspiration.
Thanks everyone!
CalebRJ, did you ever find any good material for this idea? I'm exploring doing the same in my campaign currently. I was finishing stocking an area where I'd included Fundamentals (from basic D&D, these are the most simplest of creatures from the elemental planes). I had to important questions I needed to answer for my final design, why was there water where it was and how did these fundamentals get here? I'm thinking some sort of rift.
I did find a guy who made an entire booklet on it 2 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDHomebrew/comments/v65ikb/open_elemental_rifts_across_your_world_and_have/
But, he's since gone offline and that material is no longer available :(
It sounded perfect!